Heroes
Outside the Sanctuary
In Orbit of Xandar Prime
Clint had a few seconds before he needed to make any more decisions. The ship was on course. He was far too close, moving far too fast to entertain the notion of any further evasive maneuvers. Either his insane gambit would work or it wouldn’t.
As it turned out, a few seconds is more than enough time to review one’s life choices. Not their entire life of course; he’d never believed the idea of one’s life flashing before their eyes. Even at the speeds the human brain was capable of, that just wasn’t possible. But it was certainly enough time to hit the high points.
He tried focusing on his family, but found himself dwelling on two moments: breaking Wanda out of the Avenger’s facility, and how he’d arrived at this moment with time to consider other moments . . .
He’d been monitoring the group’s progress with the Nova Prime, whatever the hell rank that actually was. He’d grudgingly had to admit that leaving someone behind to play overwatch had been a good idea, and that he was probably the best choice. After all, he’d performed that very function for the group several times already.
He’d been able to communicate various warnings to members of the party throughout the fight via a repeater array in the caverns the Xandarians had graciously allowed him the use of, a minor detail Tony had overlooked when he’d suggested Clint stay behind. Most of those communications had been to Wanda, who’d focused most of her effort in the battle on crowd control tactics.
He’d also had to grudgingly admit that Tony’s suits had given the group a decisive tactical and strategic advantage through the moving fight. Even with so many of said suits’ users so clearly unaccustomed to them, the group was plowing through fight after fight with very little resistance. They’d even decisively gained the upper hand in the final room without the loss of a single ally.
Then Thanos had shown up. Clint still had no idea where the purple monster had been; as far as he knew nothing could have been more important to him than securing an infinity stone. Had he been able to see the Titan’s right hand it would have been obvious where the Titan had been, what he’d been doing, and who he’d probably been killing.
But nearly all of the remaining cameras in the dome were near its top. The rest had been rendered inoperable, one by one, as the battle had progressed. That had suited him fine while performing his function of overwatch; a top down view gave him the best overall view of the battle. It also allowed Thanos’s pauldrons to block line of sight to his right fist, in which was contained one Mind Stone.
Then the screen went blank.
“What just happened?” the Nova Prime asked in a rather alarmed voice. Clint didn’t blame her. He’d found the imagery quite alarming himself.
“I’m not sure, sir,” the tech at the station stammered as he frantically punched commands into the terminal. Changing cameras did nothing. Rebooting the system did nothing. Bringing up a thumbnail list of all the cameras in that area showed that every camera in that room and the adjoining rooms for nearly half a mile were down.
While the tech and the Nova Prime worked on that, Clint tried contacting the group. He started by trying to get Steve, but there was no response. Next, he tried Wanda; still nothing. Then he started running through the list, trying to contact anyone. Nothing.
“The repeater network’s down too,” the tech said, cutting into his frantic attempts.
“Alright, rewind the video to ten seconds before we lost the feed,” Clint ordered.
“Um . . . right,” the tech said as if having to parse his command. Clint nearly snapped at him, but a small voice in his head reminded him that this was an alien culture with alien phraseology. It was strange enough that they spoke English; to expect them to use the exact same nomenclature would have been ridiculous. For all he knew, the local phrasing for his command would have been along the lines of ‘backtrack the picture to ten seconds before signal loss’.
“Alright, can you run it at one tenth speed?” Clint asked, hoping he’d put it in as simple a form as possible.
“Right,” the tech said, starting the video.
“Okay, okay,” Clint said more to himself as he analyzed the video. There was Thanos. He was just raising his hand, that smug look plastered all over his face.
“Wait, what was that?” He asked as a pulse was emitted from the gauntlet. “Back it up again?” he added, leaning in closer. A few key strokes and the pulse started over again. At slow motion he saw it envelop another suit; the suit began sparking slightly, as if hit by an electric current.
“Shit,” Clint cursed vehemently, standing back up. He knew what that was, and he knew why he couldn’t raise the group. They were all dead. Or they would be soon. And there was absolutely nothing he could do to stop it.
“You know what that is?” the Prime demanded, pointing at the screen as the image replayed yet again.
“It’s an EMP,” Clint stated simply. Then, to their confused looks “An electro-magnetic pulse; it’s given off by nuclear explosions.” Still they wore blank looks. “Ah, explosions caused by combining atoms, or breaking them apart,” he added. Partial understanding dawned on their faces. “These explosions released a sort of static wave of electricity that destroys improperly shielded electronics.”
“Such as the repeater and the camera system,” the Prime said as understanding dawned.
“And Tony’s suits,” Clint added bitterly.
“Surely your friend would have shielded against such devices?” she asked hopefully.
“I’m sure he would have,” Clint replied “but I’ve never heard of an EMP so strong that it was visible. I doubt the suits can handle that.”
“I see,” the Prime said in a disappointed voice while Clint tried to figure out what to do. But there was nothing he could do. It was a several minute flight just down the shaft they’d taken. It would be another five or ten to get to the chamber, and he wasn’t entirely sure what one functioning suit would be capable of.
“Ma’am,” another tech called from a few meters down the raised dais they were on “I’m receiving a communication for the Guardians of the Galaxy.”
“Route it to console Thirteen-J,” the Prime called. A moment later Rocket’s voice came through the console’s speakers.
“Quill,” he said. “Stop combing your hair and answer!”
Clint looked a question at the Prime, who nodded at the tech. He pressed a button on his keyboard before nodding, in turn, to Clint. “This is Clint,” he said.
“Who?” Rocket demanded. “Where’s Quill?”
“He’s . . . their out of contact,” Clint said, not wanting to get into explaining just how badly things had gone.
“Right, and you are?” Rocket asked suspiciously.
“This is Hawkeye,” he replied.
“Yeah, look; all you Earthers look alike to me,” Rocket replied.
Clint sighed. “Bow-guy,” he said through grit teeth.
“Oh, great,” came the sardonic response “the low-tech guy!”
Clint chose to ignore it. “What’s going on?” he asked instead.
“What’s going on?!” Rocket nearly yelled. “Thanos took the Mind Stone. The maroon guy is locked in neutronium stocks, which is actually kind of funny. The big black Asgardian is dead, which isn’t. Everyone else is injured in various degrees, and I’ve spent the last five minutes jury rigging a replacement comm panel. Basically, the worst day of our lives. What’s going on with you?”
Clint closed his eyes, suppressing a tirade of cursing. So that’s where Thanos had been. And that’s why they’d been unable to communicate with the ship. He should have realized that the only thing more important than securing an Infinity Stone would be securing two.
And if Thanos had managed to get both, then there was only one Infinity Stone still out of his grasp. The one on Earth . . .
His mind stumbled over that realization. Earth was where the last stone was. Earth was where his family was. Earth was where Thanos was going next.
“Rocket, are you still in orbit?” he asked.
“Of course we’re not in orbit,” he said. Clint winced at that, but at least the ship was safe for a moment. “Would you sit around waiting to be inducted into the psycho family?”
“Where are you?” Clint asked.
“Like I’m going to tell you that over an unsecure channel,” Rocket replied. “We made a small hyperspace jump. Let’s just leave it at that.”
“Fine,” he said into the mic “I need you to get a message to Earth. That’s where the last Infinity Stone is.”
“WHAT?!” Rocket yelled into the mic. “You mean none of us had to come here at all? All we had to do was stay where we were?”
“Believe me the irony is not lost on anyone here either,” Clint replied sarcastically. “I need you to route the message as follows,” he continued before rattling off a string of destinations that would inevitably lead to Nick Fury. “Tell them that they have to find the stone and get it off of Earth.”
“Right,” Rocket replied, sarcasm dripping from that one syllable word. “Any particular place on the planet?” Clint referred the question to the Prime with a look.
She shook her head. “We have no idea where it is. Our information simply states that it was entrusted to a powerful sorcerer on Earth, millennia ago.”
Clint frowned in confusion. He wasn’t aware of any sorcerer’s on Earth past or present. And he’d been part of an organization that made it its point to know things like that.
He turned back to the mic. “I don’t suppose that means anything to anyone there, does it?”
“Oh, yeah because the entire galaxy spends all of its time keeping up with the people on one underdeveloped hick planet,” Rocket replied.
“What about Vision?” Clint asked through grit teeth. If the three-foot nothing rodent thought he was the only one having a bad day he was sorely confused.
“Hang on,” Rocket replied, followed by the sound of him yelling across the room, presumably at the immobilized construct. “He says Wanda is the only sorcerer he’s aware of,” Rocket said.
“Alright, just make sure the message includes the fact that it was entrusted to a sorcerer. Hopefully Fury will be able to figure out where it is.”
“Great, now he’s got an emotion searching for the stone,” Rocket replied as if to someone away from the mic. “I sure hope you have a plan B,” he added.
“Working on it,” Clint replied, before turning back to the Prime. “We have to stop Thanos here,” he said with more than a touch of desperation in his voice.
“I’m open to suggestions,” she replied dryly. He winced at her tone. Here he was, suddenly desperate to stop this nightmare from occurring on his own world, to his own family. And he was demanding someone who was already staring the nightmare in the face do something, like she’d been holding back.
“I’m sorry,” he said sincerely, “but there must be something we can do.” Her expression suggested otherwise. “Could we destroy his ship?” he asked.
She shrugged. “It is possible, but his ship is very powerful. It’s already destroyed the ready fleet protecting Xandar Prime for negligible damage.”
“But you do have more ships,” Clint prodded.
“We have a larger fleet assembling at a safe distance,” she admitted. “But even if it could destroy his ship, and I’m not certain it can, he would only take one of ours. Even if we destroyed our own to prevent their, capture he’d only force my people to build another. And the consequences to Xandar for such defiance would be severe.”
“How long does it take to build a warship?” Clint asked more in curiosity than from any desire to supplant one planet’s suffering with another.
“With an entire planet focused on the goal?” she asked pointedly. “Perhaps a month.”
“Alright, so we have to destroy the ship with him on it,” Clint said, thinking desperately.
“It is unlikely he would remain in orbit once he boards his vessel,” she said. “I expect he would want to head immediately to Earth. I guarantee our vessels could not destroy his, or even damage his hyper drive, before he could depart.”
“Okay, okay,” he said, clearly thinking out loud “what if we got a bomb on board?”
She shrugged. “Theoretically, if you could destroy the hyperspace window generator as the ship was crossing the hyperspace threshold, the collapse could cause all matter in its radius to be converted to energy. But I don’t see how you could get a bomb big enough to do the job onboard.”
Clint grinned bitterly. “These suits are bombs,” he told her. “Or, at least, they can be in a pinch.”
“You intend to overload your . . . what did you call it, arc reactor?” she asked.
He nodded. “Stark warned us yesterday before he’d let us try the suits out,” he said. “I don’t claim to understand the specifics, and he was actually talking about the interlocks designed to keep it from happening, but he said that if you ran the reactor full open without using the power it created, a field that cancels the weak nuclear force is created. That’s what we call the force that keeps electrons away from the nucleus of an atom,” he added.
“And you could do this?” she asked.
He shrugged. “With the number of times he’s risked his own life to complete a mission I’d have been surprised if he’d removed the option entirely from his suit. I doubted it would have occurred to him to remove it from his loaners, so the first thing I did was find the command path.” He gave a wry grin. “Ironically that was so I could make sure I never activated it.”
She returned his grin, more in sympathy than amusement. “I admire your willingness to sacrifice yourself for your people, but if your timing is only a little off the ship will remain intact. At best you would drop it out of hyperspace in the void. At worst it would never enter hyperspace, and it would take far less time to build a replacement hyperdrive for his ship than to build the ship. You would buy, at most, a few days.”
He looked her in the eye. “Then I’ll err on the side of late,” he said. “All we have to do is buy enough time for The Statesman to get to Earth, find the stone, and leave.”
“I feel it necessary to point out that the last time Thanos was convinced of the location of an Infinity stone he destroyed an entire civilization to find it. I imagine nothing short of that would convince him it wasn’t on Earth as well.” That gave him pause for a moment. The idea that his sacrifice could bring the very destruction on his family he was trying to head off was a bitter one.
But there was a solution there as well. “Not if Earth tells him where it went,” he said. “I doubt he’d waste the time for revenge if he thought he knew who had it and where they’d gone. With any luck they can keep him chasing after them like a kid chases the queen around a chess board.”
She thought about that for a moment, before nodding agreement. She didn’t know what a queen was in relation to a chess board, but decided not to ask. “In that case,” she said “all we have to do is find a way to get you onto the ship. And there just happens to be a tactic The Guardians used once to great effect.”
Which led him back to the present. Of course, once the plan had been explained to him, he’d had to make adjustments. The only reason it had worked at all the last time had been because they’d targeted the hangar deck of Ronan’s ship, and given him enough time to assemble his troops to meet them there. They’d also been lucky in that Quill had been able to kill them with gunfire during the crash.
But The Sanctuary was not The Dark Aster. The Dark Aster was a tactical bombardment vessel. The Sanctuary was a flying base. It contained an army of augmented soldiers Clint could never hope to fight his way through, even with his shiny new, custom made, Tony Stark original, powered armor suit. They wouldn’t even all fit into one of the hangar decks for him to conveniently mow down with sliding ships fire.
And worst of all, the Guardians were pressed for time. They’d been forced to move as fast as possible to save Xandar. He, on the other hand, had time to kill. Time it would be much easier to kill if he wasn’t also fighting through the apparently endless waves of Thanos’s extended family.
On top of all that, it was possible that Thanos wouldn’t depart until a detected threat had been neutralized. No, simply jamming a ship aboard would not work. He had to make everyone on the ship think he’d never made it on board.
A light blinked on his console, indicating that he was being targeted from the rear. He couldn’t help but look at the self-destruct button on the ship’s console; it took a supreme act of will to not punch it. Somehow, he managed, instead assuming the fetal position and ordering his suit to lock. He closed his eyes almost involuntarily, as if that single act could make everything stop. A fraction of a second later a bolt of energy fired from one of Xandar Prime’s battleships knifed through a fuel line in one of the ship’s wings. The vessel he just happened to be riding in was destroyed in a series of secondary explosions.
Setting up the ‘accidental’ friendly fire incident with the Xandarians had been the trickiest part of his altered plan. Or the most insane, depending upon your philosophical perspective. There were simply too many variables to consider. He wasn’t just banking on Stark’s armor being able to handle a little explosion. He was banking on the idea that it would never even occur to anyone aboard The Sanctuary 2 that what they’d witnessed had been anything more than simple friendly fire. He was banking on the idea that, since nearly the entirety of the exploding ship was behind him, he would be thrown forward into the opening that had already been created. And he was banking on the suit’s inertial dampers being able to handle the sudden stop at the other end of that flight path. Which, of course, counted on them not being damaged by the very explosion that had set the suit in motion in the first place. So many things that could go wrong so spectacularly.
He’d toyed with the idea of trying to eject at the last moment. That would nearly have eliminated the risk of damage to the suit, while giving him more control over his entry. As appealing as that idea was, he’d been forced to shelve it. The idea that such advanced civilizations wouldn’t have the ability to stick high resolution cameras everywhere for cheap was ludicrous. And anyone analyzing that feed would quickly note that one particular piece of “debris” just happened to be ejected before the explosion, which would create all kinds of dangerous questions to be asked. He had to look like a piece of debris from the vessel’s explosion.
It almost worked flawlessly. The Xandaran admiral made sure to pick a ship to make the obfuscatory attack that could fire a shot in line with their intended target. In fact, the shot passed through the wing, hitting the edge of the hole. The captain of that ship added his own spin to the operation by creating the appearance of an equipment malfunction in the upper laser that should have taken the shot. The explosion of the weapon, whose shot would have just barely cleared his hull, gave a plausible explanation for a shift to a weapon that would not.
But that was as far as ‘flawlessly’ got him. The wing hit threw the ship into a flat spin before it could be destroyed. The time between the start of the spin and the destruction of the ship was minute, but the cockpit was set as far forward as possible, meaning angular momentum was working against him. Clint shot out of the destroying ship at an angle.
If the Xandarians hadn’t been trying to convince all aboard that they were trying to make a hole big enough for a space ship he’d have been thrown well clear of his entry point, ricocheting off of the surface of the ship. As it was, he impacted the left edge of the hole.
Even for the dampers in the suit that was a tremendous inertial change. Clint had expected to bleed speed in several small impacts as he smashed through the far less reinforced interior walls of the ship. Instead he’d bled half of it on the edge of the hole they’d managed to cut in the very reinforced outer hull.
Worse, the lowered velocity, plus the angle of his ricochet, kept him from smashing through any interior walls he encountered. Instead he careened around the interior of the ship like a pinball on a sugar rush. Not that he was awake for most of it; that first hit had been rough enough to daze him even after the inertial dampers did their thing. The second finished his consciousness off with all the effect of a sledgehammer to the occipital region.
He awoke, still in the fetal position, propped face down in the wreckage of his passage; which was fortunate, as his first conscious act was to vomit. The suit’s faceplate automatically raised the face shield, allowing the contents of his breakfast to hit the deck instead. Apparently even non-sentient constructs object to being puked on. That worked for Clint; he had no interest in having that smell inches from his face.
When he finished the faceplate snapped back into place. He tried to rise, but the armor held him locked in place. He started to panic before remembering that he was the reason it was locked like that. He quickly accessed the appropriate commands and released the posture lock he’d used.
Before he could react the suit uncurled into a slumped position against the bulkhead he’d landed next to. He rolled over slowly before shakily getting to his feet.
“Well, any landing you can walk away from,” he murmured to himself as he looked around. He couldn’t hope to identify the machinery in the area, but it looked like some form of advanced machine shop. No doubt Stark would be like a kid in a candy store.
A glance back the way he’d come showed some form of energy field covering the hole the Xandaran ships had made. Clint couldn’t believe Thanos would emplace that particular safety measure for the crew’s benefit. He found it more plausible that air was quite expensive in the universe.
He popped a compartment on the suit’s right arm and gingerly removed a small recorder he’d placed there. It had been The Prime’s idea; a way of letting them know whether he’d survived his gambit without actually sending a signal that could be tracked.
“I’m inside. Proceeding with mission,” he said in hushed tones before making to toss it through the atmospheric shield. But something stopped him. Something he had to say. He brought the recorder back to his lips. There was a slight hesitation before he spoke, as if he was having trouble getting the words out. “Tell Wanda I’m sorry I dragged her into all of this,” he said finally. Then his mouth quirked in wry amusement. “Oh, and tell Nebula I’m sorry I borrowed her ship without permission,” he added.
Then he hurled the small device through the gap with a velocity only artificial muscles could confer. It would give off a small transponder signal the Xandarians could use to track it. If all went well, anyone on the Sanctuary would think it was the remains of the borrowed vessel’s data recorder and ignore it. Either way, it was the last signal he’d be sending out.
Beyond the barrier he could see the last of the Xandaran ships departing. Hopefully those in charge had come to the correct conclusion, that now that their attempt to board Clint onto the Sanctuary had failed, they were retreating. Hopefully one of them would be able to access his final message before they left.
The sound of heavy footfalls drew his attention from the hole to one of the corridors connecting to the bay he’d ping-ponged through. They didn’t sound hurried, those footfalls, but they didn’t exactly sound like they were punching a clock either.
He backed into another corridor, while keeping his attention on the source of the approaching sounds. “Okay, where do I go from here?” he asked himself. The Prime had suggested that most ships keep the hyperspace generator near the rear of the vessel, centered on the long axis. He wasn’t sure how that related to a ship that traveled along the short axis, but he’d been guessing that it was housed in the main body when he chose his entry point.
A holographic image superimposed itself, unbidden, over the external view his hud was relaying to him. It flashed a position he figured was probably his location before rotating and zooming out. It stopped to show a large highlighted room three decks above him, running right through the core of the main fuselage of the ship. A line drew itself from his position around several bends and stairwells until it ended in the highlighted area. As if sensing his approval, the map disappeared, replaced with a line leading down the corridor he was currently in.
“Nice,” he said before starting off. He had trouble making progress initially. For one thing, he was having trouble following the pathing line on his HUD. Sometimes it seemed to lead him directly into walls, bypassing a nearby corridor. In the end he was forced to figure out how to add the map back to his UI; there was no shortage of grumbling about Stark’s pathing program as he did so. Fortunately, whatever was wrong with the pathing system wasn’t in effect on the map itself. It worked perfectly, increasing in size only when he focused on it and shrinking to take a small space on the periphery of the HUD when he wasn’t. He couldn’t help but think Stark must have outsourced that particular code to someone competent.
More importantly, every step he made clunked like two cars running into each other. After a hundred meters or so he gave up the not-so-stealthy approach and strode down the hall like he belonged. Considering the number of different races (not to mention any personalized addons or upgrades they might have been sporting) Thanos seemed to employ, it seemed like bluff might just beat stealth in this situation.
That assumption was only challenged once, after turning onto a new corridor. He was so focused on the map that he’d made it three steps down the passage before noting its other occupants. The two Chitahuri working on something embedded within the wall were more observant; both were staring curiously at him, their task forgotten.
His first thought was to turn around before they could ascertain his citizenship, but they hadn’t sounded the alert or attacked him yet. Doing so would no doubt be just a little conspicuous. Standing there, staring at them as they were him would likely have the same effect, which left bluff as his only option. He continued his march towards them, trying his damndest to purport an air of belonging to his actions.
He had no idea how Natasha pulled such things off so effortlessly. His heart was racing like it was performing a drum solo. He was sweating in his suit despite its climate control capabilities. His breath was coming in shallow, quick pants. Even his feet were getting into the act, as they constantly voted to replace his casual stroll with a full charge. Somehow, he forced them to maintain their pace, but every step forward only increased their demands.
He found himself repeating ‘Act natural’ to himself over and over as he closed the distance. He made it within ten meters before one of them reacted. He never knew what had alarmed it. Perhaps the dim light had hidden the suit’s features better than he’d thought. Perhaps he’d had to come that close for them to recognize that the armor didn’t resemble any of the technology they were used to. Perhaps it had eaten Mexican food for lunch, and suddenly needed to take a shit.
He never knew because the instant it stepped from the wall his right arm snapped out, sweeping in an arc that included both of them. As he did so, he fired two crossbow bolts from the launcher Stark had set in each forearm of the suit. Each bolt impacted its target in the head before they could register the attack. The bolt targeting the one that had stepped away over penetrated, clattering to the deck another twenty meters down the corridor. The other bolt pinned its target to the edge of the wall it had been crouching next to.
Clint’s sudden love for his new toy was cut short as a light began to blink on his HUD. At a glance it expanded, revealing the words ‘Retrieve? Yes, No’. Curious, he selected ‘Yes’. That graphic was replaced with an image of the armor from the waist up. The right arm kept crossing to his chest with the back of the hand facing outward.
Clint copied the motion. As his arm came to rest, two slots in the forearm opened up. Both bolts flitted into the open spots as if reeled in by an invisible line. The two slots closed up automatically.
“Oh, I have to get one of these,” Clint said excitedly, before remembering the goal of this expedition. The odds were very poor that he’d ever have the opportunity to acquire another suit, even if Stark would let him have one. “Okay. . .” he added in a more subdued tone as he consulted the map again. “Looks like I go this way,” he said, turning ninety degrees on his heel before continuing.
>>
Nova Prime Vaults
Entrance Cavern
The remaining Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy spilled into the first cavern they’d entered in a disheveled mass. Every one of them except Tony and Rhodes had reached the point where they didn’t think they’d ever catch their breath. Even those so injured they’d had to be carried were drained; it’s amazing how much work being carried can be when you’re trying to avoid exacerbating a serious injury, or when the carrier is in such a hurry that they forget about the fragile sticker on the packaging.
Scott and T’Challa immediately exited the elevator they’d been waiting in. They made straight for those laden with injured, to relieve them of their charges. Then they started moving them the rest of the way.
“How much time do we have?” Tony asked. None of them responded, but then, he hadn’t been asking any of them. Somewhere just past the point that Parker had bailed on his two charges they’d reestablished contact with the powers above.
“About three minutes,” the Prime replied. Their initial elation at restoring contact had dimmed immediately as she explained why she was the one talking to them. It had dimmed even further when she’d outlined Clint’s insane plan.
“It took us that long to fall down here,” Quill complained as Parker and Thor joined the main group, still gasping hard. Regardless of whatever pick-me-ups they’d made use of, they were both exhausted. It wasn’t that they were at the end of their rope; they could probably have continued caving in tunnels for some time. But they were far too tired to be effective combatants. Their reflexes were off. Their limbs moved sluggishly and felt like they’d suddenly become three or four times as heavy.
“Yes, thank you for that information,” Tony replied sarcastically.
“We’ll never make it to the top of the shaft before he gets here,” Widow gasped unhelpfully. Tony fought off the urge to promote her to Captain Obvious.
Instead he focused his energies on trying to figure out how they were going to stall the (no doubt, quite angry) madman that was already nipping at their heels. He could only come up with one option, and it was far from ideal. But it was all he could think of, and a quick survey of those assembled’s facial expressions made it clear that they didn’t even have a bad plan.
His expression shifted to one of finality. “Get everyone in the elevator,” he said. “Peter, Thor, and Rhodes help push.” They nodded somberly. Everyone looked as if they had something to say, but knew they didn’t have the time. They didn’t know what Tony had planned, but they could tell he wasn’t planning on making it out alive. None of them liked the idea of leaving someone behind, but they could see no alternative.
Instead of arguing, each made some small gesture of respect as they passed. Bucky nodded in his direction. Cap saluted. Thor clapped him on the shoulder. Everyone who could did something before turning to the elevator.
Everyone except Rhodes. “No, Tony,” the black man said from behind him before half of the group had finished.
Tony turned around, eyes moist. He’d known this would be the hardest goodbye. He also knew they didn’t have time. “It’s the only way,” he said, eyes pleading with his friend to just get on the elevator and go.
“If you detonate here the blast wave will travel up the shaft, and there’s a fifty three percent chance it will collapse.” Tony gave him a querying look, as if to ask where Rhodes had gotten so precise a calculation. He’d done the math of course. He didn’t like it either. No one likes choosing from the best of terrible options. “Charlotte did the math,” Rhodes explained.
“Ah,” Tony said. He’d have regretted outfitting the suit with an AI except they’d never have gotten this far without it. “Another way of saying it is there’s a forty seven percent everyone else will escape,” Tony replied.
“Those are shitty odds and you know it,” Rhodes replied.
“You have a better option?” Tony asked. If it had been anyone else the question would have been far more sarcastic.
Rhodes looked his friend in the eye before stating “I’ll buy the time you need.” There was no waffling, no uncertainty in that declaration. There was only the steel of a warrior who knew what he had to do, and knew that those that survived would make his sacrifice count. It could not be questioned.
Tony questioned it anyways. “That’s insane,” he said. “You can’t possibly take them all yourself.”
“I’ll buy the time you need,” Rhodes said again, adding even more steel to his voice. Then he shrugged, giving an almost carefree grin. “I’m the only one that can, Tony. No one else is even close to combat capable.”
Deep down Tony knew Rhodes was right. He knew that. It didn’t matter. Rhodes was more than a friend; he was a brother. He couldn’t just let him go, no matter the stakes.
“He’s right, Tony,” Natasha said softly, from behind the red suit. Annoyance flashed across Tony’s face at her intrusion, but he couldn’t escape the fact that she was right, or that his delay was putting them all at risk.
“They need you,” Rhodes added, nodding past him. Tony hesitated before nodding ascent. Still he didn’t move. He searched his mind for something he could say, something he could do that might convey just how much the pilot had meant to him over the years. But there was nothing. No ritual. No phrase. In the end he did the only thing he could think of. He held his hand out for a last handshake. It was lame and he knew it. But that didn’t change the fact that he had to do something, even the wrong thing.
Rhodes took a step closer and grasped Tony’s forearm in a Viking’s handshake. They held each other’s arms for a half second, staring into each other’s eyes. Somehow that seemed to convey everything they needed to say to each other. Then Tony broke the embrace and turned towards the elevator, face set in stone. Natasha touched the forearm of his suit in sympathy before jogging ahead.
The scene touched everyone in the elevator, but none stronger than Nebula. It caused a stirring somewhere deep down inside of her, in that place in which she’d shoved her compassion so long ago, that she could not put down. It was almost as if it were her and Gamora out there, instead of these two men she barely knew.
“What are you guys waiting for?” Tony asked, perhaps slightly gruffer than necessary. Everyone else was squeezed into the elevator, watching him approach. Everyone except Peter and Thor, who were on the roof, preparing to help pull the elevator along. “Get moving. I’m pushing,” he said.
Steve nodded and hit the button with the ‘up’ arrow. “Hey Airman!” he called out as the metal gates closed. Rhodes turned around, a questioning look on his face. Steve saluted him, just as he had Tony a moment before. The other occupants, those from Earth, followed suit. Then the elevator began to rise.
“I guess we’re going,” Parker said from his perch at the top of the cab before starting to pull on the counterweight.
“It would seem so,” Thor agreed as he gripped the handle the kid had made for him out of webbing and began to spin his hammer over his head.
Down below Tony gave Rhodes one last glance before stepping into the shaft. He grabbed the base of elevator as it passed and activated his boots. It was fortunate that he was pushing as opposed to crammed into the overlarge elevator; his people skills were sub-par at the best of times, and this moment was far from that ideal.
“First thing’s first,” Rhodes said to himself aiming one of his precious missiles at the second elevator and firing. The snapping sound of cabling suddenly relieved of its tension made it clear that that particular mode of conveyance was no longer operational.
“Alright, Charlotte,” he said as he scanned the room slowly “we’ve got about a minute before our guests arrive. I’d like to be able to prepare some kind of welcome for them.”
“Then, might I suggest the power cells from the nonfunctioning defensive structures?” the AI’s rich, melodic voice asked. Small spots of highlighter yellow began to dot his HUD, indicating the locations of usable cells. He focused on one. The HUD automatically zoomed in on the target of his interest. Each cell was a rough cylinder with tapered ends about half a meter long. Some of them were leaking some sort of purplish gas. The gas was heavier than air.
“You sure about this?” Rhodes asked, already blasting towards the nearest of them.
“Chemical fuels are generally temperamental,” she replied. “I would recommend against contact between the suit’s thrusters and the gas,” she added laconically.
“Thanks for the heads up,” Rhodes replied dryly, as he started collecting them.
The cracked cells were dropped rather unceremoniously onto the bridge at staggered intervals. Several more were clustered around the entrance Peter and Thor had collapsed. One of those found a nice little niche in the rock just over that entrance. Then he started working on the structure of the bridge.
He was still mining the underside when Thanos cleared the last of the debris out of his way.
Rhodes flew back to the top of the bridge to stare at the small horde. Instead of the Titan Rhodes saw a file of his minions working their way through the debris. Apparently Thanos was feeling a bit cautious at this point.
There were sixteen of them in total, none looking to be in good shape. They didn’t attack the figure hovering a safe distance over the bridge’s half way point. Nor did they try to step foot, pincer, prosthesis, etc. onto the purple gas coated bridge itself. Instead they silently fanned out, creating a defensive perimeter around the entrance.
That worked for Rhodes. No doubt, they thought the delay would work itself upon his nerves, and if truth be told, that’s exactly the effect he’d have expected. Instead, he felt this centering calm, as if everything was right in the world. As if, deep down, he knew he was in the right place, doing the right thing in his life.
Acceptance that he wasn’t going to make it out of this probably played a part in that. It wasn’t that he wanted to die. It was just that he didn’t expect to live through this encounter, which neatly sidestepped the suspense of worrying about one’s mortality. As powerful a motivator as self-survival could be, that wasn’t his purpose this day.
His goal was to delay Thanos long enough for the others to escape. If they wanted to waste their time with formations, he wouldn’t interfere. Besides, he had more pressing concerns; it had suddenly occurred to him that he should say something at this auspicious juncture. No, more like he was required to say something.
His mind flitted through all the war dramas he’d seen, all the histories of ancient battles he’d read. But nothing seemed . . . right. Well, that wasn’t true. There was one thing his mind kept fastening on. But it was bit silly, a touch childish, and far too optimistic.
But apparently that was the mood he was in, because no matter how many queries he started his mind kept stubbornly returning the same option. Over, and over, and over, until Thanos finally appeared.
He stepped out of the hole his minions had made in the wall, taking in Rhodes’s presence as well as his purpose in stride. He stopped in the center of his minions and looked upon the floating black suit for a minute moment before speaking.
“I applaud your courage, but not your intellect,” the Titan called out in a serious voice. “You alone are not sufficient to delay me.”
Rhodes searched his mind again, this time for an appropriately snappy response. Tony would have had one on the tip of his tongue, just waiting for the monster to finish his remarks. But Tony wasn’t here. He was. And all that was on the tip of his tongue was that one stupid line.
“Fuck it,” Rhodes muttered to himself before activating the suit’s loudspeaker system. Charlotte anticipated his needs by cranking the external volume to maximum. He took a deep breath, hoping for one last inspiration. Something like that which Horatius or John Paul Jones had uttered would have been perfect. But Horatius was just a bit long winded for the occasion, and Jones just didn’t quite fit. In the absence of anything else, Tolkien would just have to do.
“YOU SHALL NOT PASS!” he intoned, voice booming about the cavern. Thanos cocked his head curiously, before reaching out and grabbing the suit telekinetically. Then he began to pull the black suit towards him.
It was about the response Rhodes had expected after presenting himself as the immoveable object in The Alpha Male’s path. He had to prove he could move it, and he had to prove that in as menacing a way as possible. Which was exactly what Rhodes was counting on for a couple of reasons. First it was a slow process, eating still more time. Second, the early arrival (or delayed mining operation) of Space Hitler and Co. had forced some improvisation on him.
His original plan had been to hurl a couple of cells at Thanos as he emerged from the tunnel. The timing would have had to be perfect to keep them from being caught and hurled back, but he’d been confident he could pull it off. He expected the blast would have been sufficient to launch even Thanos back into the tunnel he’d just emerged from.
But he’d underestimated the industriousness of those under the motivation of the whip. He hadn’t even had enough time to be sure he’d placed a sufficient amount of IED’s under the bridge, let alone scare up a few surplus cells for use as thrown weapons. The bridge should go up as he’d planned, but it might not. Charlotte was refusing to give hard odds, citing a lack of information on the materials used in its construction as an excuse. One thing was certain though: it wouldn’t have been destroyed if he removed a couple of the charges for his personal use.
But he needed to get Thanos back in the tunnel he was standing in front of. His missiles had proven effective enough to affect that altered vector, but again, that telekinetic ability got in the way. It had worked once because he’d timed it perfectly, and because Thanos hadn’t seen it coming. He had no delusions of making it work a second time.
He thrusted against the invisible hand that was slowly pulling him exactly where he wanted to be, more for show than anything else. After all, it wouldn’t do to have the bastard wondering exactly why his victim went so willingly.
It also helped to slow his progress even more, though his braking efforts were far less effective than he’d hoped they’d be. But eventually, far sooner than he’d have liked, he found himself floating in front of Thanos. He’d been forced to quit thrusting as he closed on the purple haze his less than inconspicuous land mines were releasing. Instead, Thanos held him just below eye level, a meter and a half away.
“Now,” the purple version of Leatherface said condescendingly “what was it you were saying?”
That’s when Rhodes’s chest arc fired the biggest repulsor blast it could manage. Repulsor blasts moved at nearly the speed of light. Even Thanos couldn’t react that quickly. His face barely had time to display his surprise before the blast knocked him back into the hole.
He reacted far faster than Rhodes had expected by spreading his arms out to grasp the walls of the tunnel, stopping himself barely three meters inside. This had the side effect of sending loose bits of dirt drifting down the length of the hastily erected tunnel. A good amount fell, but not enough for the cave in he’d been hoping for. Clearly it needed help.
Rhodes had dropped to his feet as the repulsor blast broke Thanos’s concentration on him. Now he snatched one of the cells he’d left lying around the entrance off of the ground and hurled it into the mouth of the tunnel. Thanos caught the demolition charge telekinetically before it could go more than a couple of meters.
It only floated there for a moment before Thanos hurled it back, but that was enough time for the obstruction to hide Rhodes’s last missile as it blasted down the tunnel. The two objects met quite violently a meter and a half inside the hole. A gout of flame erupted from the entrance as both objects exploded. It traveled upwards, barely missing the power cell Rhodes had left there.
The flame cut off quickly, followed by a puff of dirt as the entire tunnel collapsed right on top of Thanos. With luck he’d find it quite difficult to dig himself out of his improvised tomb.
His ‘children’ apparently reached a similar conclusion; half of them launched themselves at the now filled mouth of their tunnel to frantically dig him out. The other half converged on Rhodes.
Before they could reach him, Rhodes activated his repulsors, launching himself into the air. The gasses he’d been standing boot deep in ignited as he did so, flashing back to their parent cells.
The ensuing explosion did not kill any of Thanos’s minions, but it certainly damaged them. Rhodes flew back to the midway point of the bridge and glanced at the elevator shaft his comrades had used those few minutes before. There was a chance he didn’t have to die here. He might just have bought the group enough time already. He could leave now. It wasn’t like any of those misbegotten creatures could have stopped him. Nor did he relish killing them. After all, they’d had no choice in becoming what they were.
Almost against his will, he turned back to the other end of the massive sphere-shaped room. What he saw squashed that one hope. Thanos’s minions were there, already back to digging their master out. Without Rhodes’s presence they were all digging, and the time they were making was staggering. If he didn’t intervene, they’d have Thanos free in less than a minute.
Rhodes glanced back at the shaft once more, but he knew he would never use it. Instead, he blasted back to the frantic relief effort. He fired a wrist laser at the cell he’d placed over the door, undoing all their hard work. Then he strafed the lot of them before heading back to the center.
The battle devolved into a series of hit and run raids. With a fresh suit, with full armaments, he could probably have landed in the middle of them and wreaked havoc. But he didn’t have a fresh suit, and his armaments save bullets were completely depleted; he had to settle for keeping them from focusing on their task, and reversing their efforts with the occasional lobbed fuel cell.
On his second run he realized that somewhere along the way he’d started singing the US Airforce Anthem. It started as a mumbled afterthought, but once he realized he was doing it the recital became louder and more pronounced. He hadn’t sung that song since his days at the Academy, yet it was fresh in his mind.
Off we go into the wild blue yonder,
Climbing high into the sun
He strafed the landing Thanos’s minions were on again, this time armed with two cells he’d taken from those he’d placed at the top of the bridge. The first was dropped on the ranks that had gathered at the edge of the landing to try and knock him out of the sky. As he passed the halfway point of the landing, he rolled in order to hurl the second at the excavation in progress. Unfortunately, this one did not explode. Unable to rectify that failure, he continued his roll. He adjusted his course slightly in order to shoulder check one of the minions into the pit below as the finale to the run. Whether it was dead or wounded by the fall wasn’t important; he was confident that it would have no further effect on his mission.
Here they come zooming to meet our thunder
He landed back on the bridge. Placing the cannisters on top had turned out to be a mistake. He supposed he’d been hoping Thanos would casually order his men to cross despite the obvious danger his mine field possessed. Instead it had turned out to be a deterrent to luring his opponents from their labors.
At 'em boys, Give 'er the gun!
He solved that problem by snatching up the cells and tossing them in long arcs that ended with the too damned industrious diggers. He didn’t much care if they detonated or not, he just needed them clear of the bridge. That didn’t stop him from interrupting his serenade with a quick ‘dammit’ as none of them detonated. He figured they must have leaked too much of their gasses to be that easily ignited.
Down we dive, spouting our flame from under
His opponents threw the cannisters off the landing as quickly as they could. They managed to remove all but three before he’d finished his barrage. He sighted his wrist laser on the most exposed of the remaining cells and fired. The explosion was the biggest yet, yet it seemed to yield the most limited returns in terms of creating rockslides. He was running out of wall to collapse.
Off with one helluva roar!
That said, the explosion did damage most of them further, kill two diggers, and launch one of the forlorn defenders to the deeps. It was also further evidence that he would have to be dealt with before they could dig The Boss out. Nine of the remaining eleven charged three abreast down the now ‘safe’ bridge at full speed.
We live in fame or go down in flame. Hey!
Nothing can stop the U.S. Air Force!
He greeted the two flankers of the first line with repulsor blasts that sent them reeling into their compatriots behind them. Then he sidestepped to the right of the point minion’s wild lunge, grasping its throat with his left hand as he did so.
Minds of men fashioned a crate of thunder
Sent it high into the blue
He launched himself and his unwilling charge off to the right of the bridge. He killed his forward momentum at the ten-meter mark from the bridge. Then he grasped his cargo by the ankle (or whatever it was using in place of same) and elbow and spun two hundred and seventy degrees before releasing it again. The minion flew like a thrown discus directly into the center of his fellows, creating quite the tangled mass.
Hands of men blasted the world a-sunder
While they were busy untangling themselves from one another he dove below the bridge and fired on the fuel cells he’d placed there. The group exploded in an even larger explosion than his last.
How they lived God only knew!
The bridge buckled in the center, but otherwise remained intact. He flew closer to inspect the damage. The explosions had definitely taken a large chunk out of the bottom of the bridge, but it still seemed structurally sound. He tried his laser, but whatever material the bridge was made out of was quite resistant. He even tried ramming the weak spot he’d created from below. Nothing worked.
Souls of men dreaming of skies to conquer
Cursing the over competence of Xandaran engineers mentally, he scanned the dome’s walls for any more power cells he could use to finish off his little demolition project. He’d just spied a couple flanking the elevator side of the bridge when something took a swipe at him from the side of the bride.
Gave us wings, ever to soar!
His Hud flashed a warning light indicating the direction of the attack. He dodged away instinctively, and rotated to see one of Thanos’s children hanging over the side of the bridge. It appeared that it was being held up by another of its brethren.
With scouts before And bombers galore.
Before he could respond another light flashed, indicating the opposite side of the bridge. This time he was hit before he could respond, but it was a glancing blow without any real power. Their precarious nature, dangling over the abyss, made it difficult to land a firm blow.
Nothing can stop the U.S. Air Force!
Before they could try again Rhodes aligned himself to face the collapsed tunnel still more of them were busily recreating. He crossed his arms over his chest, keeping the palms of his hands pointed out at his sides. Both repulsors flashed at the same time, pushing his hanging assailants swinging away from him. The torque was enough to make one of the holders drop its charge; it bellowed as it fell out of reach.
Here's a toast to the host
Of those who love the vastness of the sky,
Rhodes didn’t care if the other one fell or not, their involuntary swing left him an opening. He flew around and above the bridge. Two more duos had been setting up to swing a man down to bother him. They looked up as he rocketed over their heads. He cut his boot thrusters, pitched over to face the ground, and cut his thrusters back in at max. He kept his arms stretched out in front of him, forearms up at ninety degrees, protecting his head from the oncoming collision.
To a friend we send a message of his brother men who fly.
By good fortune, one of Thanos’s minions just happened to be standing directly above the weakest part of the bridge. The black suit slammed through its body, barely even slowing before impacting the bridge. The weak point shattered under the hit. Amazingly, only the middle half of the bridge fell into the abyss, but that was enough to catch the eight still on it.
We drink to those who gave their all of old
Rhodes blasted back into the air and aimed himself at the last two diggers. They saw him coming and turned back to their task with renewed vigor. He braked to a halt next to the digger on his right, grabbed it at its collar area and one of its legs, and lifted it away from the face it was working on. It ignored him in favor of continuing its task, even going so far as to stretch its limbs out in order to move that last bit of gravel out of the way.
Then down we roar to score the rainbow's pot of gold.
The moment it was too far from the cave in to do anything it turned on him with a fanatical vengeance. It wiggled and kicked and tried to snake its head around to bite him. It thrashed inside his grasp, desperately trying to free itself. And it almost worked. He hadn’t realized just how massy the thing was, nor how strong. One hand slipped from its collar. It redoubled its efforts to bite him with a maw he had no doubt could crush the suit’s helmet. Before it could he pivoted on his heel, spinning in a circle. Centrifugal force yanked it away from his face. Once its flailing arms were at full extension, he released it to fly into the wall of the dome before bouncing into the depths of the cavern.
A toast to the host of men we boast, the U.S. Air Force!
He turned to the other, this time grabbing it by both shoulders and hauling it away from its work. As he did so he caught sight of Thanos’s now unearthed head, as well as a good portion of his right shoulder. They looked at each other momentarily before Thanos launched the black suit off of the landing they were standing on.
Off we go into the wild sky yonder,
Rhodes, completely having forgotten he was holding Thanos’s last minion, drug same off with him. There was a brief scuffle in the air as it tried to grab onto him, but he was able to kick it away. His last sight of Thanos before he fell below the floor was of the Titan’s right arm emerging from the dirt straight jacket that had held it.
Keep the wings level and true
He glanced at the time, and was stunned to realize that the entire fight had only lasted about four minutes. He had to buy more time. He began looking around for anything that would help him do just that.
If you'd live to be a grey-haired wonder
Keep the nose out of the blue!
Meanwhile, Thanos drug himself slowly out of the attempted tomb. If he felt any concern for the sixteen ‘children’ he’d brought with him he didn’t show it. He simply strode to the edge of the landing, taking in the state of the cavern. He knew better than to trust the bridge, so he got down into a three point stance. Then his thigh muscles bunched, and he launched himself into the air on a trajectory that would end at the other landing.
Flying men, guarding the nation's border,
But that black suit arced out from under the bridge, carrying another two cells. Rhodes threw the payload, one after another, at the airborne Titan. Thanos caught them telekinetically, preparing to return the gesture. Before he could, Rhodes’s minigun spun up, targeting the floating cells. They exploded, creating a fireball that shrouded each from the other’s view.
we'll be there followed by more!
Rhodes used that occlusion to add a slight bend in his course, just in case Thanos tried to grab him blindly. He then accelerated in order to pass through the cloud of flame before Thanos. Charlotte put a ghostly outline of Thanos on his screen, indicating where he should be heading based on last known data. Rhodes veered for an intercept, firing his concussion pulse at the target.
As he cleared the cloud, he confirmed Thanos right where he was supposed to be. He accelerated harder. At the last moment before impact he traded his concussion pulse for a left hook right to Thanos’s temple.
In echelon we carry on
Oh, nothing'll stop the Air Force!
The collision arrested both of their flights. They fell in a tangled mass. Despite the concussion pulse, despite what was probably the single most powerful hook ever delivered, Thanos retained enough presence of mind to grab Rhodes before he could blast away again. Rhodes targeted everything he could on Thanos’s face, in the hopes of making him flinch; everything he did just made the monster increase his hold.
Nothing'll stop the U.S. Air Force!
He tried to bring his concussion pulse to bear, but Thanos caught his right forearm in his free hand. His grip tightened like a pneumatic press, crushing the weapon, the gauntlet, and the forearm underneath. Rhodes growled in pain and headbutted the monster. He fired his chest arc again, but couldn’t loosen Thanos’s hold
They were staring each other in the face when they hit the ground.
>>
Tony’s eyes were sealed like storm shutters. They had been since some time shortly after he’d become an ancillary booster for the elevator. If you ignored the tightness around his eyes and mouth you might think he was asleep.
By that point they were too far away for Tony to have been able to make the sounds traveling up the shaft. But Friday could. She’d been enhancing every sound she detected.
Most of those sounds had originated as explosions, but a few were simply the clash of high inertia impacts. Tony flinched at each sound as hope and despair warred within him. Hope, because each sound was proof that his closest friend was not yet dead. Despair, because each sound could also indicate the completion of that foregone conclusion.
As they went the sounds of combat became greater and greater. Then, about three quarters of the way to the surface, all went silent. Tony held his breath, praying to any deity that might listen for just one more sound.
None came.
He gasped a ragged breath as a tear streaked down his cheek. He started to take another when a new sound reached him.
His first thought was to hope that his conclusion regarding Rhodes’s demise had been greatly exaggerated, but he realized quickly that that was wishful thinking. This sound was distinctly different. For one thing it had a steady repetitive sound to it, a rhythmic clanging. For another, it seemed both quieter and closer than the previous sounds.
And they were getting closer.
They were getting closer very quickly. He quickly tilted his head down to scan the depths between his boots. Deep down he knew what he would find, yet he found himself hoping it would be Rhodes coming to join them. After all, they were almost to the surface as it was. It could be him.
But it wasn’t Rhodes. And even though he’d already known what he’d see he still gasped in fear as Friday zoomed in and enhanced his view.
The sounds he’d been hearing were that of Thanos rocketing up the shaft. He was using the framework around the shaft as if it were a giant-sized ladder. A giant-sized ladder he was currently bounding up, one single arm pull at a time.
Tony checked the distance to the surface: still another two thousand feet to go. At the speed they were traveling they might just make it before he could catch them, but probably not. And it wasn’t enough to beat him to the surface; they had to have time to hide before he made it to the top.
His mind whirred in search of possibilities, as if each thought were a separate pinball bouncing around the inside of his skull. But, this time, none of them found anything resembling a home. For the first time since his capture so long ago he wasn’t sure what to do. The best idea he had was to use his boot thrusters to blind, and possibly push the approaching Titan away. But his limited mobility made succeeding at such a tactic highly improbably.
The best he could truly hope for was that such a move might get Thanos to focus solely on him. If he could do that, all he’d have to do to save the others was let go of the elevator and fall the nearly four miles they’d come. If he could keep Thanos busily fighting him for even thirty seconds the others would be able to get clear. But even that suicidal plan was far from certain.
“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit,” he mumbled continuously as he tried to gauge the timing of his move. So engrossed was he on the approaching ballistic missile like monster that he didn’t even realize he was doing it.
Peter hadn’t heard Thanos coming. He was so tired he was focusing all of his energy on webbing the counterweight’s line and pulling. Web, pull. Web, pull. Web, pull. He’d never felt so tired in his life, so tired that nearly half of his shots were missing. But he wasn’t quite so tired as to miss Stark’s rather uninventive string of obscenity.
“Karen, what’s going on?” he panted between pulls. While he waited, he wondered idly just how much web fluid was left in his shooters. He’d already gone through the two spares the suit carried, but he wasn’t certain how long ago he’d inserted the replacements.
“Thanos is coming up the shaft at high velocity,” the AI reported after touching base with her counterpart in Tony’s suit. Which meant that Rhodes was almost certainly dead. Peter closed his eyes and exhaled in grief. He’d liked the ex-pilot. He’d looked up to his sure, confident bearing almost as much as he looked up to Mr. Stark.
Mr. Stark, he thought as the gears in his head came screeching to a halt. Even in his exhausted state he could draw a line from Thanos’s presence to Mr. Stark’s most likely course of action. It wasn’t hard, seeing as how they’d already had to stop him from sacrificing himself twice. There was little doubt what he’d do, being the only person between Thanos and everyone else. Even less doubt when you factored in the fact that he’d just lost his best friend.
Peter glanced at Thor. The Asgardian didn’t look much better than he felt, but he was still twirling his hammer with a determined look on his face. He thought about explaining where he was going, but he didn’t have time for an argument. Instead he slipped quietly over the side of the elevator.
Despite the ordeals of the day, Thor was not so tired as to miss the Peter’s exit. He’d been keeping a close eye on the kid out of concern that, in his current state, he might fall off of the edge of the lift. He almost called out after him, but stopped himself. The kid had definitely earned a little autonomy after recent events. Realizing what he’d just thought, Thor made a mental note to stop thinking of Peter as a kid. He was a warrior. And that warrior had decided his services would be better used elsewhere. In the end, Thor’s only response was to adjust his position over the elevator to compensate for the lack of pull on Peter’s side.
Tony needn’t have worried about trying to get Thanos’s attention; the delay Rhodes’s last stand had imposed upon Thanos had sent him into a frenzy the likes of which he’d never felt before. Not even crushing that black suit’s chest piece flat and watching the organs spill out of Rhodes’s mouth had made a dent in his mood. In short, he had every intention of venting said frustrations on the first person he came across.
It was just his good fortune that that target should be the very man who had made those irritatingly reliable suits. The moment he’d caught sight of that red and gold paint job his vision had narrowed in on it like a target system. His mind filled with such wonderful thoughts of revenge that all he saw was his target.
He never saw Spiderman creep down to the bottom edge of the elevator car. He never saw him tense as he made his final leap at Stark. He didn’t even see the kid fling himself from the car, or web the bottom to turn that launch into a swing. His first indication of another presence was verbal.
“Sorry, this car’s full,” Peter shouted as he used his other web shooter to fling a barrage of stun webs at Thanos’s eyes. The Titan lurched, instinctively covering his eyes with one massive paw. Peter’s boot struck him in the jaw, just below his hand. Thanos spun into the side wall. Despite the sudden spin, despite the electricity being applied directly to his eyes, despite being blind, he was still able to turn that spin into a reverse bicycle kick that launched Peter into the underside of the car.
Peter was unconscious before he hit the elevator car, a situation unimproved by that second impact. Tony managed to grab him by the collar, trusting Karen to tighten the suit so the kid wouldn’t fall out. He pulled the kid close, awkwardly maneuvering him over his shoulder into a fireman’s carry with one hand. Then he glanced back down the shaft.
Friday immediately increased his zoom level. The sight would have been comical if it hadn’t been for the dire seriousness of the situation. Thanos seemed to be having a hard time choosing between trying to catch himself on the girders he was careening down and trying to pry the shock webbing facial Peter had applied off of his face. Every time he put his hands to his face, he careened into something. In the end he let up a roar of rage as he plummeted back to the bottom of the shaft.
It would have been comical. “Friday how’s Peter?” Tony asked quietly.
“Karen says he’s unconscious and exhausted, but he should be fine,” Friday replied.
“That’s good,” he replied, sounding so tired it was heartbreaking.